Lifestyle

Experiencing Abundance, Part Five
John 10:10

If you want to understand the heart of God…the character of God…the nature of God…in short, if you want to “get God right”…then it’s essential to understand that He’s a God of abundance. God doesn’t have a limited supply of anything. God doesn’t have to be measured in any way for fear of running out of some essential resource. God can afford to be lavish in all ways because He is abundant in all ways. Everything He is and everything He has, He is and has in abundance. This is one of the great truths that we’ve been trying to wrap our minds around through the course of this most recent series of messages.

A second great truth that we’ve been soaking on is this—God delights in sharing His abundance with His children. God’s passionate desire is to lead each of us to that place where He can pour His abundance into our lives. In fact, He’s so determined to do so, that He sent Jesus to us to make it possible. In John 10:10 Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

The third great truth that we’ve been considering is this—in spite of God’s passionate desire to share His abundance with us, you and I can stifle the flow of God’s abundance into our lives if we allow sin to remain in us, because sin separates us from God, the source of abundance. Isaiah 59:2 says it like this, “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.”

These are three great truths that are critically important for us to thoroughly understand if our desire is to experience the abundant life that God created us for.

--God’s abundance is rock solid secure.

--God’s desire to share His abundance with us is also rock solid secure.

--What remains to be seen is whether or not we will keep the pipeline to God’s abundance open by keeping our lives free from the lingering presence of sin.
In previous weeks we’ve talked about sins of thought, sins of attitude and sins of speech. This morning, I want to talk about relational sins. Sins that find expression through our RELATIONSHIPS. Sins that are born when we fail to apply God’s counsel, fail to exercise godly discipline; fail to submit to the leading of the Holy Spirit each and every one of our relationships.

One of the very first things that God says to us in the Bible is this, “It is not good for man to be alone.” God created us to live in relationships…with Him and with each other. We are relational beings by design. The relationships we share with others…especially other Christians…are among the greatest blessings of life. But keeping those relationships healthy calls us to walk successfully…every single day… through a minefield of explosive sinful possibilities. And when we stumble the results can be catastrophic.

So, it’s really important for us to regularly invite God to search our hearts to see if there is anything that we are doing in any of our relationships that is in any way displeasing to God. This morning, I want to identify three areas into which each of us should regularly invite God’s examination so He can root out all trace of relational sins.

The first area is this—Anything that we have done to cause offense to someone else. Some word that we said; some thing that we did; some thing that we failed to do… I’m talking about all of those things…big and small…that we sometimes do or fail to do that result in another person being hurt, wounded or offended.

Key Point #1—Every relational offense is worth resolving. God has not given us the option of ignoring some of our offenses in some of our relationships. 2 Corinthians 5:17-18 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation…”

Big picture time: the grand work that God is up to in the life of every one of His children is this: He wants our lives to reflect, in ever increasing clarity, the character of Christ. The willingness to accept unresolved relational offenses reflects our character, not His. One of the ways that we reflect Christ most clearly is in the reconciliation of broken or wounded relationships. Every relational offense is worth resolving.

Key Point #2—When the offense occurs between Christians its especially important to resolve them quickly because unresolved offenses between brothers and sisters in Christ not only stifle the flow of God’s abundance into the life of the offending individual, they have the potential to stifle the flow of God’s abundance into an entire church family.

Which is why Jesus speaks so forcefully to the issue in Matthew 5:23-24, saying, “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

In other words, don’t think that things can be right between you and God if things are still broken between you and your brother. The nature of the offense is irrelevant. If God shows you that you have in some way offended a fellow believer, your responsibility is to take the initiative to bring about reconciliation by confessing the offense to the offended party and asking for their forgiveness.

Now, at that point, you’ve fulfilled your responsibility. If they choose not to forgive you, that’s their choice. You’ve done what God wanted you to do.

Folks, we pay a terrible price…individually and corporately…when we fail to resolve relationships that we have wounded. We shut off the flow of God’s abundance. On the other hand, we invite an outpouring of God’s abundance…individually and corporately…when we take the steps that lead to reconciliation.

Now, on the flip side of this first relational sin, namely, doing something to offend someone else…is a related relational sin, namely, holding a grudge against those who have offended us. Harboring bitterness, hatred, hard feelings and ill will against friends, family members, church members and others who wounded you, offended you, disappointed you or in some way let you down. All of these kinds of festering hard feelings are ultimately rooted in the same sin, namely, an unforgiving spirit.

Just a few moments ago we noted that the grand goal toward which God is working in each and every one of His children is that our lives would reflect with ever-increasing clarity the character of Christ. Folks, I can’t think of anything that is less like Christ than an unforgiving spirit.

Colossians 3:13 could not be any clearer. It says, “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.” So, let me ask you brothers and sisters in Christ…you who once were dead in your sins and now are alive in Christ… you who once were not a people but now are the holy, chosen people belonging to God…you whose sins were like scarlet and now they are as white as snow…you whose sins have been removed from you as far as east is from west …let me ask you…how has the Lord forgiven you? Completely. Fully. Graciously. Abundantly. All of the above. That’s right. Now, forgive as the Lord forgave you.

You know, the truth is that we actually receive a triple blessing when we forgive those who wrong us in some way.

--To begin with, we get to let go of the consuming burden of constantly stoking the fires of our bitterness.

--Secondly, we get to experience God’s forgiveness of our sins. We sometimes forget that through an unforgiving spirit toward others, we cut ourselves off from God’s forgiveness for ourselves. In Matthew 6:14-15, Jesus says, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” That means that when we hold on to an unforgiving spirit toward others, God stops listening to our requests for His forgiveness.

--Thirdly, because God is once again listening to our prayers and answering our requests for His forgiveness of our sins, we move back into that place where we can once again begin to experience God’s abundance.

Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

We could certainly address any number of other relational sins but for the sake of time I want to focus on just one more, this morning. It’s the sin of inappropriate relationships. And while this category of relational sins certainly includes sexual immorality its not limited to sexual immorality. It also includes relationships in which inappropriate emotional attachments are formed and fostered.

--A husband begins to share with a female coworker, details of the problems that he and his wife are having at home.

--A wife begins to share with a male coworker her frustrations about her husband.

--One spouse is spending so much time with his/her friends that the other spouse begins to feel neglected.

--A young husband or wife constantly runs to his or her parents for emotional support and counsel rather than working things through with their spouse.

--Parents are so intrusive in the life of their married child that they stifle the growth of that marriage.

In essence, I’m talking about any kind of secondary relationship that in any way threatens or undermines our primary relationships. In the case of marriage, the foundational biblical vision of marriage is a vision of two people…joined together by God…to become one. And that means that one of the primary responsibilities of every Christian husband and every Christian wife is to do whatever it takes to help their spouse feel loved and secure. The moment another relationship begins to threaten or undermine our spouses’ sense of security within the marriage relationship the other relationship needs to change or end. This is not a time for rationalizing. This is a time to honestly seek God’s counsel in prayer. “Father, search my heart and search my relationships and if You find anything even remotely inappropriate, point it out to me and then drive it right out of my life.”

One of Satan’s favorite schemes for messing up our lives and getting us out of God’s will and purposes is to take those things which God intended to be a blessing to us and twist it around in such a way that it leads us into sin. And he loves to do just that with our relationships. God intends for them to be a great blessing to us. But if we’re not careful, Satan can draw our eyes off of God and begin to corrupt our relationships. Before you know it, this wonderful gift is so thoroughly corrupted that it causes great harm.

So, let me invite you to spend a few moments, right now, asking God to search your relationships. Ask Him to show you if you need to ask for someone’s forgiveness. Ask Him to show you if there’s someone that you need to forgive. Ask Him to show you if any of your relationships are, in some way, inappropriate. Now, do what He wants you to do.